The invention is directed to a method for controlling and/or monitoring whereby at lest one monitoring unit exchanges information with processor units that are connected to the monitoring unit via a common telegram transmission network and are provided with addresses and whereby polling telegrams of the monitoring unit and reply telegrams of the processor units are transmitted.
Such a method is already disclosed by German Published Application 34 36 414. In the known method, the addresses are set with the assistance of coding switches.
A method for in-service monitoring of a communication transmission equipment wherein useful signals are transmitted via an electrooptical transmission link and telemetry signals are transmitted via an auxiliary channel is already known from Ewald Braun and Erhard Steiner: "Supervision and Additional Services for Digital Fiber-Optic Transmission Systems" telcom report 10 (1987) Special "Multiplexing and Line Transmission", pages 107 through 112.
The known method uses address-free telemetry telegrams, so that the processor units provided in the line terminal equipment and intermediate repeaters of a transmission section need not be addressed. The method, however, can not be employed without further ado in communication transmission equipment that have a star or, respectively, tree structure. When processor units that are called under address control by a locating unit in cyclical succession are provided in the appertaining telemetry means in a communication transmission network having star or, respectively, tree structure, then a structure corresponding to the useful signal network can also be provided for the telegram transmission network of the telemetry means.
This is also true of equipment for distributing electrical energy or the like that are to be monitored with the assistance of a remote control means.